Suspilstvo (La société) – scholarly series

Object, title and publishing format

Suspilstvo (La société, Suspìl'stvo in Czech bibliographic records) is a scholarly collection of the Ukrainian Institute of Social Sciences in Prague, issued in 1925–1927 under the editorship of Mykyta Shapoval. The Czech regional catalogue records three physical volumes, each with a paired book designation: I–II (1925), III–IV (1926), V–VI (1927). This is the most specific evidence of the series' structure in the available catalogues. [SP01; SP02]

Describing Suspilstvo as a “monthly journal of 1925–1932” is inaccurate: the documented serial set has different units and chronological limits. The institute itself operated much longer than its collection appeared; its relationship with the journal series does not mean that both existed for the same duration. [SP01; SP03]

Formation of the Ukrainian Institute of Social Sciences

The institute was established in Prague in 1924 on Mykyta Shapoval's initiative. The encyclopaedic account describes its ethnological, sociological-political and economic areas of work, its library and a number of scholarly centres. The scholarly periodical disseminated research and was not a separate university institution. [SP03; SP04]

In the Česko × Ukrajina graph, the institute already has ID R0042, and its founder Shapoval has R0003. These relationships allow the dossier to be integrated without creating a duplicate institution by confusing the “Institute of Social Sciences”, “Sociological Institute” and publisher of the collection. Changes to the scholarly centre's official name should be recorded with dates, rather than as another separate organisation. [SP03]

Editor Mykyta Shapoval and authors' responsibility

The Czech catalogue explicitly identifies Mykyta Šapoval as editor of the series. This is editorial responsibility for the scholarly collection; it does not justify attributing every article, illustration, translation or review to Shapoval. Each contribution should retain its author, original language and pages. [SP01]

The involvement of foreign sociologists in the institute was a prominent part of its intellectual programme. Recent research mentions an article by Leopold von Wiese from 1925 in the Suspilstvo corpus; however, its exact title, pages and the author's consent to translation should be checked against the contents of the particular volume, rather than an abstract. [SP05]

Three physical volumes and six nominal books

The catalogue of the Research Library of South Bohemia (CBVK) gives: I–II 159 pages in 1925; III–IV 183 pages in 1926; V–VI 161 pages in 1927. A second scholarly bibliography gives “159 + 10 pp.” for I–II and “184 pp.” for III–IV: most likely, these reflect different rules for counting supplements and pagination. The figures should not be forced into agreement without examining particular copies. [SP01; SP05]

Three digital records in the electronic library confirm the series' presence in all three years. It is important to explain to users why the label “book V–VI” does not mean two independent books surviving in two different bindings. [SP06; SP07; SP08]

Content: sociology, economics and an international perspective

The works gathered in the series represent an attempt by Ukrainian émigré scholarship to understand social structure, political institutions, urban and rural life, sociological methods and the experience of social transformation. The publication matters both as a cultural artefact and as a document of the development of an independent research tradition in interwar Czechoslovakia. [SP03; SP05]

An individual author's scholarly conclusions should not be confused with the institution's collective editorial programme. Some works reflect the political views of their time; a scholarly record should provide the source's context, date and possible methodological limitations, rather than turn statements from the 1920s into present-day recommendations. [SP05]

A specific example — Town and Country, 1926

The V. I. Vernadsky National Library describes Mykyta Shapoval's Town and Country, Prague: Legiografie printing house, 1926, 36 pages, as a separate offprint from Suspilstvo, books 3–4. The Russian State Library has a similar bibliographic record. This is a particularly valuable example: one scholarly text existed within the collection and as a separate offprint. [SP09; SP10]

The database should create different physical manifestations linked to one text: appeared_in for the article and offprint_of for the separate printing. Two bibliographic forms do not imply two new independent studies by Shapoval or two different publishers. [SP09]

The scholarly collection's international language

The Czech catalogue records the parallel French title La société. This characteristically expresses Ukrainian émigré scholars' ambition to engage in international intellectual dialogue, but a French title alone does not prove that all texts were in French or were sent to particular foreign universities. [SP01]

The website model has separate fields for original_title, parallel_title, language_of_article and language_of_abstract. The Czech catalogue form is a transliteration and should not automatically replace the Ukrainian spelling attested on the publication. [SP01; SP06]

Distinguishing the scholarly institute from other organisations

The Ukrainian Institute of Social Sciences in Prague is not identical to the Ukrainian Free University (R0034), Ukrainian Economic Academy (R0035) or Ukrainian Historical and Philological Society (R0041). They operated in the same interwar setting but had different statutes, organisational programmes and publications. [SP03]

Suspilstvo should not be confused with Nova Ukraina (R0088), to which Shapoval contributed, or with the modern “Society” section of digital media. An author's simultaneous participation in two editorial teams does not establish legal succession between their publishers. [SP03; SP11]

Locating surviving copies and digital reproductions

The catalogues list three physical volumes; links are available to digital records for 1925, 1926 and 1927. Information from the Central State Archives of Public Associations of Ukraine (TsDAHO), fonds 408, inventory 1, file 170, specifies the archival holding of the first and third volumes within a file of 172 folios. The file does not guarantee a complete three-volume set: issue III–IV is not mentioned in the cited description. [SP02; SP06; SP07; SP08]

The website's bibliographic catalogue should indicate which volume is represented by a printed copy, a scan or metadata alone. A digital file may be republished only after the legal status of the relevant copy has been checked. [SP02]

Intellectual legacy and prospects for development

Suspilstvo enables a research route of “Shapoval — scholarly institution — three volumes — individual articles — offprints”. Such a route is more informative than a simple biographical note: users see the production of knowledge, publishing practices and the international presence of Ukrainian scholarship in Prague. [SP01; SP09]

At the same time, retrospective embellishment of the biography and organisation's history should be resisted. Not every scholar mentioned was an institute member; not every printed text was approved by the entire editorial team, and broad research plans could differ from what was actually achieved. [SP03; SP05]